Sen. Cory Booker at a committee hearing on Capitol Hill on April 25.
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On Wednesday, Sens. Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill with an ambitious goal. The Reverse Mass Incarceration Act is a proposal to amend the 1994 omnibus crime bill passed under President Clinton, which earmarked $12.5 billion in federal grants for states that passed harsher criminal sentencing laws. The new bill aims to do the opposite, by offering $20 billion in federal grant money over 10 years to states that decrease their prison populations by at least 7 percent over three years.